With just two days to go before climate talks are scheduled to wrap up in Paris, the new climate text is actually getting tighter – a marked contrast to years past, when the final days tended to see the text bloat before exploding and then needing to be pieced together again. More importantly, the current text explicitly endorses the use of carbon finance to Reduce Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation.

9 December 2015 | PARIS | The latest draft of the Paris Patchwork Climate Accord is out, and it’s incredibly lean and clean, according to John O. Niles of Tropical Forest Group, whose ParisAgreement.org site has been tracking progress based on the amount of conditional – or “bracketed” – text and the number of options. by his count, the number of open brackets is down to 366, from 1,609, and there are just 47 options:

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Steve Zwick is Managing Editor of Ecosystem Marketplace and produces the Bionic Planet podcast. Before joining Ecosystem Marketplace, he covered European business for Time Magazine and Fortune Magazine and produced the award-winning program Money Talks on Deutsche Welle Radio in Bonn, Germany.